Warming
by averagemuggle
Summary: Pregnant Olivia oneshot written for Fringe Roulette


**AN: **This piece of fluff with hints of smut and angst is brought to you by Fringe Roulette, which is a group of us Fringies taking turns to publish a Fringe work every two weeks. We're always happy to welcome new members, whatever their fanart medium. If you're interested you can check out our dreamwidth page at emmitron**DOT**dreamwidth**DOT**org/289**DOT**html or you're welcome to reach me on my tumblr: emmitron01**DOT**tumblr**DOT**com/

Enjoy!

For the first time in weeks, she wakes before dawn. The room is dark, save for city lights glowing through the curtain and the block numbers in the clock that let her know it's not even four yet. She's been sleeping better lately, longer and deeper. The reason for that is laying behind her with an arm draped over her ribs. In two hours the alarm will pierce their little haven and throw her back into saving universes. She needs sleep. She tries to focus on him, his warmth against her back, his breath on her neck, his legs tangled with hers. She hasn't had a sleepless night since he came to her apartment to stay.

But tonight is different. Tonight a foreign kind of restlessness keeps her awake. Something warm is swelling deep within her, so dull and yet so intense she can't tell if she's euphoric or terrified. Whatever the emotion is, it's threatening to explode. She burrows further into Peter and tightens his arm around her, hoping to use him to hold her in. Her movements aren't graceful, she knows, because he gives a small start behind her and settles back in. He's not awake, but he's more conscious than he was a minute ago. Needier than usual, she pulls his hand away from its resting spot beneath her breast, and guides it to rest between her legs.

"Liv?" he mumbles.

"I need you," she says, too restless, too tired to be subtle.

There's a groan, and then his fingers are fumbling through her folds. It isn't fair of her to wake him like this, she knows and he clearly agrees, because he isn't trying very hard. All his technique is gone, it takes three misses before he finds her clit, and even then he just gives her a few broad strokes before he slips two fingers inside and just leaves them there. For a moment she thinks he's fallen asleep, a brief mumble tells her he's only just. She grinds against his fingers, pushes herself into him to feel his barely-there erection. And she thinks exhaustion must the only force strong enough to quell his sexual appetite. For some reason this thought brings a smile to her lips and suddenly the swelling inside her erupts in a deep laughter that shakes her torso against him. The warmth inside her feels less foreign, it's fused onto her insides and is spreading through her limbs, she's more than happy to let it stay that way.

His hand moves from her legs and runs up and down her shoulder, more alert than before, but still heavy with sleep.

"You okay?"

Still vibrating softly from residual laughter, she turns to face him. Wraps her arms tight round his torso and presses their naked bellies against one another. She kisses his chin before she burrows her face into his chest and nods.

"Sorry I woke you," she murmurs against his skin.

His response is a press of his lips upon her head. They've both had moments of irrational need in the past few weeks, small moments in the day when one of them will suddenly grab the other, sometimes for a kiss, but often just to feel their bodies close together. When space and time have ripped them apart so many times, they both understand the need to feel fused together. Sometimes they just can't be close enough.

Tonight is different though. She hasn't been disturbed by the thoughts of threatening outer forces. Tonight her mind is stuck on this warmth winding through her body. Something good is coming. The thought and the surety make her smile.

Peter's fallen asleep again, his body falls away from hers. She hooks a leg over his hip to pull him in place. She breathes in his scent and sighs.

"I love you," she can't help but whisper.

She thinks of that night weeks later when she's in the doctor's office. She barely listens when he tells her how far along she is because she already knows. She thinks of the hours before she woke. Her and Peter lost in the sheets, making love with ease for once, not the desperate greedy tumbling their lovemaking had become after he'd been erased.

They'd conceived their baby that night.

_Their baby._ When she thinks of that, the swelling explodes inside her again. A grin pulls up the corners of her mouth and she stops hearing the doctor. She just wants him to leave and Peter to come so she can tell him. And he comes, and she tells him. He picks her up and kisses her and she registers Walter and Astrid smiling and laughing but all she can see is Peter.

Soon after, they're heading home. He carries her from the car to the apartment and she's too exhausted to protest. When he's settled her onto the mattress and peeled off her dirty clothes, he lies down beside her. She remembers reaching for his face but she sinks into black before she can reach him.

Hours later, she floats into consciousness and drapes her arm over empty space where his hip should be. Her body jerks upright and her heart plummets to her stomach. As if to protest the intrusion, the warming in her abdomen blossoms again, so strong and spreading so fast she can't ignore it. Her limbs are already relaxing the moment before Peter walks in through the bathroom door and pause, staring at her. She only then realizes both hands are resting on her stomach.

"What?" she asks.

He smiles.

"You're glowing."

The warmth never really goes away. It's always there, growing as her baby does. Intensifying when she needs it most. It's there when they finally talk to Walter about the possible effects of cortexiphan, when they realize there's not much they can do but wait. It's there at the first ultrasound when it takes the technician longer than expected to find the heartbeat. It's there nearly every night. The moment Peter passes out beside her and she's left alone, thinking about how perfect her life has suddenly become and all the ways it could so quickly go wrong, the warmth is there. Like when Peter touches her face, this little act of assurance reminds her, '_It's ok, I'm still here_'.

All through the labour, all through the pain and all through Peter's thinly masked anxiety, the warmth is there. She holds onto it. She holds onto it harder than she holds onto Peter. And then, she sees her face, and she lets it go.

The moment she hears that first cry, catches that first glimpse of waving limbs, everything that isn't her baby flies away. Henrietta's here, and she's resting on her chest and the feeling of her daughter's skin against hers is the only warmth she'll ever need.

"I love you," she can't help but whisper.

For the first time in over twenty years, she wakes up with him beside her. Like decades ago, before Etta and before his erasure, they're pressed together on a twin mattress. Like years ago, he's wearing his wedding ring again. She can feel the bullet pressing into her back from where it lies against his chest now.

Since Etta died, all she's wanted to do is sleep. And for the most part that's what she's been doing. But it's not until now that she's actually starting to feel rested.

She's starting to feel whole again. Starting to feel truly hopeful that maybe they can make it out of this with something good. For the first time in a long time, she feels warm.


End file.
